


places where lovers

by queerofcups



Series: Valentine's-a-palooza [1]
Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Magic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-02
Updated: 2018-02-02
Packaged: 2019-03-12 12:05:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,419
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13546974
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/queerofcups/pseuds/queerofcups
Summary: And they sink, little by little, further down.





	places where lovers

**Author's Note:**

> A billion thank yous to queercussp for schooling me in some bog knowledge!

As soon as Phil gets out of the cab, thanking and paying his driver, the feeling settles on his shoulders like a cloak. He tugs his suitcase out of the car behind him and stands, looking at his parent’s house, breathing in the clean taste of the air. It’s not his quite his childhood home, exactly, this second, looming house that holds the memories of his teenage years. But the tenderness he feels just looking at the now shuttered windows doesn’t feel that different from when he looks at pictures of himself as a baby, a quiet, sweetfaced child with too-serious eyes and a mouth that took the first stabs at words like  _ light _ and  _ no _ . 

He takes a deep breath and walks up the pathway to the front door, unlocking it and letting himself in. 

The house smells stale, like it's been locked up for three or four years, waiting for owners that never quite promised to come back. 

After the things that happened...after...his whole family knew they couldn’t come back. Word travels in small towns fast no matter what, and the whispers that the youngest Lester boy had gone mad were too intriguing to stay between the walls of this house for long.

He closes the door behind him and leans back against it. He’d talked to his mother this morning, before he’d gotten on his flight. She was trying to convince him that there’s nothing here for him, on this island, in this house.  _ Phil _ , she’d said, and Phil could hear sadness in the low lilt of the way her tongue pressed against her teeth when she said his name,  _ I thought we’d gotten past this _ . 

They might have. The might have thought he had. He’d stopped talking about the bog-eyed boy. He’d gone to college and then uni. He’d dated girls and eventually boys, and gotten friends and jobs. He’d moved out and found a job that promised to turn into a career. 

He could say that  _ we _ got over it. The Lester Family had moved on from the summer that his little fascination had turned into an  _ episode _ , even if it had required leaving this lovely home on this lovely village on this lovely little island to get their son proper psychiatric help in the big city. 

London smelled like trash and steel and car exhaust. Phil had loved it with his whole teenaged heart, nearly unable to believe that he’d gotten out of his sleepy town and all he had to do was take a crush a little too seriously. 

But London didn’t stop the dreams. 

From sixteen and a half to twenty four, Phil dreams of peat bogs covered in brown and orange scrubby plants. He dreams of pale feet sinking into an otherwise undisturbed bed of moss and deep, dark eyes. He dreams of long limbs and curly hair and a mouth pressed to his. 

He dreams and dreams and when he can’t stand it anymore he wakes up and makes plans. 

The village they lived in before they moved had a population small enough that it felt like everyone knew everyone. But it's hard to ask if people remembered a brown haired boy that walked like he was used to the ground sucking at his feet. It's damn near impossible to ask if they remember the way he left spongey moss in his wake and when he kissed you it left the  a surprisingly pleasant taste of leaves n your mouth.

Phil booked a plane ticket anyway. He got the keys from his parents and told them he was fine, he just needed a rest in seclusion after so many years in a busy, buzzing city. 

He knew they didn’t believe him, but they gave him the keys anyway, after making him promise he’d stay at a bed and breakfast, that he wouldn’t try and stay the night in that stuffy old house.

Phil had smiled and charmed his way out of giving an answer. 

The thing therapists give you is a way to cope. But it's not hard to turn coping into calming others, carefully building a wall between the smiles you give them and the things happening inside your head. 

Phil looks around the old house, tries to remember what it looked like the last time he’d seen it, nearly ten years ago now. He closes his eyes and hears the sounds of the bog, the whistle and buzz of bugs and birds.

He drops his things and heads back out, locking the door.

There are only so many places to go in a town like this before you venture out into the woods and faerie or not, Dan seemed to like a pint as much as the next guy.

Walking through town is an experience. There are street corners that look familiar and buildings that have shapes he’s seen in his dreams, that house different businesses now. There are people that he thinks he might have known, that look at Phil like they’re trying to place his face but can’t come up with a name. 

He gets to the pub unbothered, and counts it as a win. 

The tables are dark wood and sturdy and the feet of the chair screech against the floor a little when he drags it back to sit down. 

He checks his phone. There are a few notifications, likes on a recent picture, a voicemail from Martyn he hasn’t looked at yet. There’s a cut off message from Jimmy:  _ good luck with your fairy adven- _

Jimmy, who rolls his eyes at magicians but stares down at his tea leavings like they’re the lock and key to the universe, only believes him a little bit. Just enough to humour him. Phil supposes a lot of friendship is believing someone, even if it's just enough to humour them. 

He opens up Jimmy’s message and is tapping out a note to let Jimmy know he’s made it to his destination when his server comes up. 

“Hi there, what’ll you be having tonight?”

Phil looks up. He drops his phone. 

It’s hard to ask people if they remember a brown-eyed boy whose smile was like the sun coming up and cutting through mist, but apparently it's not too hard to find one at the local pub. 

Dan gives him a mild, neutral smile. There’s no recognition, or surprise in his eyes. A flower sits  behind his ear, a funny little fuzzy cone of yellow sprouts. 

“A...a pint,” Phil says, staring at him.

“Any pint in particular?” Dan asks, raising an eyebrow. His mouth quirks upward, the same way it did the first time they met, Phil’s foot sinking in the wet soil and Dan in it up to his waist.

“N-no, just,” Phil struggles to think of a single beer he’s had in his life. “Surprise me.”

“Okay,” Dan says, shrugging a shoulder. “One surprise pint, coming up.”

Phil wants to say more, wants to ask what the  _ hell _ Dan is doing here, apparently working at the pub, but Dan’s walking away and an old man is saying, “Well blow me right over, Phil  _ Lester _ .”

Phil finds himself surrounded by a group of men that were old when he left and only older now, trying to smile as they take turns patting him firmly on the back. 

They keep talking to him and he does his best to keep up, but his attention keeps snagging on Dan. He looks nearly the same as the first day they’d met, a little leaner, his haircut trendier. 

Before, when Phil was pretending that he’d imagined this whole thing, he’d scoured the internet for mythical creatures that were associated with bogs. The only thing he’d found was the ballybog, squat, spindly creatures with potbellys and scant hair. 

Dan’s far from a bollybog and Phil can’t keep his eyes away. He’s dressed in all black, other than the off-white of his slightly stained apron and he’s taller than the last time Phil saw him. His hands are bigger, Phil’s eyes keep drifting down towards his knobby knuckles and blunt, cut nails. The first time Dan kissed him, he’s buried one hand in Phil’s hair and he’d smelled like springtime exploding. 

Eventually, the old men are satisfied. They pat him on the back again and shuffle away, mumbling about their backs and early bedtimes. 

Dan doesn’t look at Phil, except when he brings him another drink. Phil stays and watches Dan and the sunlight coming in the windows moves and changes and sooner than Phil expected, it's dusk and Dan’s tugging off the apron tied around his waist and disappearing behind a door marked EMPLOYEES. 

He doesn’t come back out. 

Phil sits, and waits, and watches the door until it's properly night, and Dan doesn’t come back out. 

Phil sighs and stands up on legs gone wobbly after the number of pints he’s had and goes to the bar to settle his tab. 

He steps out into the night, the hair on his arms prickling in the cool and steps out into the street. Something tugs him in the opposite direction and he finds himself walking in the other direction, slipping into the tight alleyway between the pub and the convenience store. He walks, because something is telling him he  _ has _ to, until he’s in behind the buildings. 

He blinks once, twice, and suddenly Dan is there, cupping the back of Phil’s head and whispering, “You came  _ back _ .”

His eyes are the last thing Phil sees before Dan is kissing him. They’re blown out, scalera swallowed in inky darkness that Phil is certain would shine deep, dark brown in the light. 

Dan’s hands on him feel big, and familiar and his mouth is still cool, and sweet like a rush of clean water. Phil’s nose feels full of the scent of moss and soil and he clings back to Dan. 

“You’re  _ real _ ,” Phil says when Dan pulls away. He rests his forehead against Dan’s and huffs a laugh. “You’re real. You remember me.”

“Of course I remember you, you spoon” Dan says, rolling his eyes. “You think I’d forget the human I went all--fucking--Little Mermaid for? I teach myself how to turn my eyes human, learn how to stop sprouting moss and just when I’m ready to take a stroll on the Man side of things, you disappear!”

He’s dropped Phil’s arms now, and backed away enough to pace and wave his arms around a bit. Phil watches him, eyes catching on the little ways Dan has changed. He’s a little taller, and his jaw has filled out. Phil wonders if Dan changed his appearance to keep up with Phil’s aging. 

“You wanted me to drown,” Phil points out. “You’ve seen The Little Mermaid?”

“There was some reIatable content, ” Dan says, sounding annoyed, "I wanted you to be  _mine_. "

Perhaps it should have been more intimidating, having an inky-eyed bog faerie yell at you, but Phil mostly felt amused and amazed that he’s made it back here. 

“By drowning,” Phil repeats, fighting a smile. 

“By drow--by  _ coming with me _ ,” Dan half yells, waving his arms more. 

Phil loses his battle with himself, breaking into a grin.

“God,” Dan says, coming close again. “Just look at you. You’re back, and you’re bigger and I just want you to come home with me. I’ve been here for  _ years _ , Phil. Just waiting for you. Do you know how boring you humans are? It’s all oh, let’s get married and have a baby and then die before we can get properly interesting. Video games are good though. Good job on that one.”

Phil pulls him close, tucks his face into Dan’s neck. The buzzing sound is back and when Phil looks up, they aren’t in the alleyway anymore. They’re standing in the middle of a bog, lit by stars and moonlight that seems brighter than any streetlight Phil’s stood below. 

“I have a job,” Phil says idly, looking around. “In the city. Friends, too.”

“But I’m here,” Dan murmurs, tugging Phil toward a path to a patch of dirt that Phil knows, without a doubt, they’re going to fall into. 

The smell of the bog is sweet and thick, and feels a little like knobby, blunt fingers gently forcing themselves into his mouth and down his throat. Phil could recite facts about decaying and decomposing plant life, can reel off facts about moss and the perfectly mummified bodies of farmers and soldiers.

But Dan is here. It's been years and he’s  _ tried _ to stay away and really, he’s succeeded. He grew up and built a life and for a while even thought he was done with this whole thing. 

But he’s back here, at this bog, with this creature, letting himself be lead forward.

Dan steps in first, doesn’t let go of Phil until he’s stepped forward, no ground to catch him as he falls in to his neck. It's cold, it's  _ freezing _ , and Phil feels panic clawing up his lungs.

“Oh, no,” Dan sighs, pulling Phil closer. His body isn’t warm in the frigid cold of the bog but he’s solid and his arms wrap around Phil firmly. 

“No, no, nothing is going to hurt you. You’re mine,” Dan sighs, and he wriggles a little, pressing their bodies further together. 

“I missed you,” Phil says, teeth chattering. He’s certain his lips have turned blue.

“No more than I’ve missed you,” Dan says, tilting his head forward to rest his forehead against Phil’s. “Never more than I’ve missed you.”

Dan wraps a leg around Phil and they sink, little by little, further down. 

Phil hopes, if this doesn’t work and he can’t come back, that his family isn’t too surprised. But then, he muses, maybe it works and he still can’t come back. Maybe that’s the point. 

“My kin will love you,” Dan says, pulling his head back to look at Phil. His eyes seem bigger, his teeth sharper and more plentiful. “They’ll love you like I’ve love you.”

Phil has been loved in his life, sweetly and deeply by many people. But he’s never been loved like this. It's haunted his waking and sleeping moments for years and now, in this sweet smelling bog, his chance has come. 

Phil takes a deep breath as they sink and his mouth is covered, his nose, then his eyes. 

_ They’ll love you _ , he hears in his head.

And then there is nothing but the feeling of Dan’s limbs, wrapped around his body. 


End file.
